Treasure Island Revisited

• Liam Hooper, Grade 4, Aspley State School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

Smack! There it was again. Something was whacking the ship. Smack! Uh-oh! The ship was sinking. Everyone was in a mad panic. Some people were jumping over the sides to save themselves but they were swallowed up by the sea. There was only 4 men remaining: the carpenter, the captain, the first mate, and me, the cabin boy. We quickly climbed into a lifeboat and lowered ourselves into the monstrous sea…
A thirty foot high wave towered above us. It was terrifying. As it washed over us I thought that we would all die. And then I blacked out.
I woke up on a deserted island. I saw Nick, the first mate beside me. He was already sitting up. “Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yeah I’m fine” he replied. All of a sudden we heard a roar coming from the clearing. “What was that?” asked Nick.
“I don’t know” I said. “Let’s go and see.” So we jogged over to the clearing…
When we got there we saw two things: A man about sixty years old and a monster. “We better get over there and rescue that poor man or he’ll be eaten” I said to Nick.
“Good idea” said Nick. We went over to the monster but on the way I stopped to pick up a massive boulder. I threw the boulder at the monster with all my might. I hit it. I smashed its back. It roared and fell to the ground. “Thanks” said the man. “I owe you guys my life.”
“Who are you” asked Nick.
“That doesn’t matter” said the man. “I’m one hundred and twenty years old.”
“What!” I shrieked. “You look sixty!”
“On this island you don’t age. I came here when I was sixty…one hundred and twenty is my real age.”
We spent the next few days hunting and chatting with the old man. He told us that he had been left on this island by pirates in 1847 hoping he would starve to death.
One day a ship came past the island. We signalled to it hoping to get its attention. It came over to us and told us to jump on board. I asked the man if he wanted to come back but he said; “If I went back I’d die of old age.” He pressed a weird looking item into my hand. “Never show this to another living soul or you’ll regret it” he said sternly. As I hopped onto the boat I looked on the back of the item to see if there was a brand name written on the back. But there wasn’t. There were only two words: Ben Gunn.